


Trying Hard to Be Your Best

by bold_seer



Category: Legally Blonde (Movies)
Genre: F/F, Female Relationships, Feminist Themes, Law School
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-14
Updated: 2018-06-14
Packaged: 2019-05-18 12:29:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14852768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bold_seer/pseuds/bold_seer
Summary: Suddenly, Warner’s ex wasn’t the punch line to a mean joke about blondes.





	Trying Hard to Be Your Best

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SoulJelly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SoulJelly/gifts).



Bruiser was sleeping, almost buried by pillows. Vivian, sitting next to Elle’s bed, resisted the urge to pet him. Her hands were in her lap, on her chequered skirt; she studied her nails, which were neat and bare. She wore no jewellery. Admitting you’d been absolutely one hundred per cent wrong had to be harder than missing even the most crucial question on a test. Failing an entire exam, not that she had any experience of that.

(But at least she’d had a nightmare.

 _Vivian Kensington_ , said a woman who looked remarkably like Prof. Stromwell, before she pronounced sentence. Harvard had only admitted her because of a bureaucratic error. Actually, Vivian had scored a 138 on her LSATs - not a 178.

Good luck getting into any Top 14 school with that result. Good luck getting into a school in the _top 140_.)

It was one of those things you could never prepare enough for, like getting cold called in class. No matter how clever she was, how well she’d studied, it made her slightly nervous. That she’d slip up. And everyone would know.

Vivian steeled herself. Opened her mouth. Closed it when the words wouldn’t come out. Her mother always told her she resembled a fish, foolishly gasping for breath, but maybe her mother was the foolish one. She pressed her lips together. Opened her mouth again and let the words speak for themselves. “Elle, I’m sorry. I’ve been so stupid.”

She did felt stupid. What kind of a classmate had she been?

“I’m sorry about Callahan.” Even if she’d done anything to catch his interest, other than be herself, she shouldn’t have blamed Elle. _He_ was a professor. _He_ should’ve known better.

For a moment, Vivian was reminded of a few boys who’d expressed their interest. It always turned out they wanted her less for anything intrinsically her, her personality, even her looks, and more for the combination of Kensington, Connecticut and country club. What it looked like she looked like. Intelligent and well spoken. Successful, but perhaps not _too_ successful. Competent, but not attention drawing. Classy, not dressy. Not showy. Neutrals were safe. And pastel blue, soft and feminine in a subtle way, never irritatingly girly, too bright or bold.

Everyone expected her to go along with it. So she did.

But she had regretted her reaction later in court. Been embarrassed about everything, when she’d thought about it in her dorm, before falling asleep. Seeing herself almost like an outsider, a child spying on the adults. Repeat her mistake. Say those cruel, unnecessary words. She’d just been so upset at what she’d thought she’d witnessed. Somehow the worst part was that it was Elle. She didn’t even know why. “And for being so mean and petty and jealous.”

Elle was listening. Sitting cross-legged on the floor in yoga clothes, but listening. How could she begin to explain? “You were so obviously pretty. And smart. I didn’t -”  


_Expect you to be. Respect you. Accept you._

It had felt like a slap to the face. Suddenly, Warner’s ex wasn’t the punch line to a mean joke about blondes. About Marilyn Monroe, who never quite seemed like a real person. (As if Jackie, too, wasn’t a person. In addition to being an icon, pearl necklace and pillbox hat, a wife and a mother.) About what men preferred - _in and out of bed_ , someone sniggered - what _men_ preferred. She was there and she was real and proof that someone who seemed, at first and second glance, to be nothing but a silly SoCal girl could succeed. At law. At Harvard. Equally to or better than old money, preppy East Coast boys and girls, beating them at their own game, the game they’d invented.

She’d clung to Warner. To that stupid rock, like it was going to keep her afloat. Now she could care less. Couldn’t care less. “I’m not as nice as you.”

“Viv,” Elle said gently, beaming up at her. Why was she still so kind? “I’m not always nice.”

Vivian smiled in return. A genuine smile, not professional courtesy, the grimace Callahan got when he dismissed her. “That’s okay. Lawyers don’t have to be nice.”  


Elle shook her head earnestly. “I said your fingers were bony and you could do with more makeup and called you awful. It wasn’t even true, really, I just said it because I was jealous, too. Of you and Warner, can you believe it?”  


“I was.” The truth. “I am awful. A real cow.”

It was as if there were only two available roles in Warner’s life, or life in general. The ice queen, _like a frigid bitch._ Or easy, breezy, beautiful and blonde. Two kinds of women. Two sides of the courtroom.

“No one is _always_ nice. But you can be whatever you want to be. We’re at Harvard. We can do anything.”

Elle paused, like an actress waiting for the beat. Waiting to say her next line for extra impact. Like a lawyer who knew how to work the courtroom. “You don’t have to wear nail polish. Or you could, if you wanted to. Paulette is so nice, I should introduce you - and OPI has this great new shade that would suit - no! Focus, Elle.”

Her face turned thoughtful. “When I decided to go to Harvard, everyone was surprised. Though they were nice, everyone from my sorority, Delta Nu. They supported me, even though they didn’t really understand why I was doing it. But my dad said law school is for people who are ugly and boring and serious. Like I couldn’t be serious. Like I couldn’t wear pretty clothes and study hard and help people. Viv. You aren’t ugly because you’re smart or serious.”

But a snobbish attitude, what an ugly thing that is.

To break the ice, to smooth over any awkwardness, focus on the facts. “We’re at Harvard and we’re fighting over boys.” One boy, who wasn’t all that.

Elle’s eyes were bright. “Pretty stupid, huh.”

They should rather, Vivian decided, be fighting over cases. If not Callahan’s attention, if he even was capable of considering female students in a professional context, other than fetching coffee or - she abandoned that train of thought - then the other professors’. Stromwell, imposing and impressive. Vivian had always been so concerned with what people said. But she thought, too, maybe she needn’t try so hard to be perfect. Maybe perfection wasn’t the answer. Could she refocus, turn that competitiveness into something else?

They could be independent women, fighting for themselves. Or Charlie’s Angels, fighting together. Fighting for each other.

“I like pink,” said Elle, brushing an escaped lock behind her ear. “I like pretty things. And I like you. You _are_ nice, you know.”

She leapt up from the floor, light as a ballerina on her feet. Vivian expected a hug. Maybe Elle squeezing her hand. Instead, she kissed her. A soft and spontaneous kiss, with a hint of bubble gum lip gloss.

 _Oh_ , Vivian thought dazedly, _I like you too._

She tasted the kiss and the word and recalled French class: _elle_ , she. But most of her thoughts were of Elle, Elle Woods, beautiful and new.


End file.
